Police Charge Hawkins In Theft

TAVARES — A Leesburg black activist who fought for almost 30 years to become a lawyer was arrested Friday and charged with stealing from a client.

Virgil Hawkins, 78, was released about an hour after being booked at the Lake County jail on a charge of grand theft. Hawkins could not be reached for comment.

The charge stems from a civil suit filed last year by a woman who said Hawkins defrauded her of $11,500. Hawkins resigned from The Florida Bar in April to avoid disciplinary action relating

to the lawsuit.

In the civil complaint, Shirley Sharpe, age and address unknown, said Hawkins misrepresented himself to her and refused to return the money she paid him for a deed to some land.

Sharpe said in the suit that Hawkins told her he was the agent for the estate of a deceased man and Hawkins took $11,500 and promised her the deed to some Lake County land.

Sharpe said she later learned that Hawkins was not the agent for the estate and Hawkins failed to return the money to her when she demanded it. A final judgment in the suit was entered against Hawkins in June by Circuit Judge Ernest C. Aulls, who ordered Hawkins to pay Sharpe $13,774.80.

State Attorney Ray Gill said the judgment has not been paid.

Hawkins gained recognition in 1949 when he was refused permission to enter the University of Florida Law School. Hawkins' efforts, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court, resulted in the founding of a law school at Florida A&M University.

Hawkins, however, still wanted to attend the University of Florida's school, where school officials excluded him. He eventually attended the New England School of Law, Boston, and received a degree.

The Florida Bar at first refused to admit him but the Florida Supreme Court in 1977 decided to allow him to enter practice and be a member of the Bar without passing the exam.

Since then, Hawkins has been in several scrapes with Florida Bar authorities, including one that resulted in a public reprimand for telling a witness in his first criminal case to lie.

Efforts by members of the Florida Legislature to name a law school after Hawkins were scrapped when allegations of misconduct against him were made public.